Philip Aziz Centre (PAC) is expanding its current community based hospice services to meet the needs of families and children living with the challenges of a life-limiting illness by establishing a Children’s Residential Hospice. This Home will provide increased respite options for families and a choice of setting for medical/respite care. This Children’s Home – the first of its kind in Toronto – one of 6 in Canada - builds on PAC’s fifteen years of excellent care and support for people living with cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life threatening-limiting illnesses in the comfort of their own homes.

Read more in a recent article in the Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/767107--plans-for-toronto-s-first-children-s-hospice-unveiled

This family-centered, safe, professional home-like environment will support up to 10 children, 6 who are medically fragile and require specialized care and 4 whose seriously ill parent(s) requires a temporary break from care giving to attend to their own urgent medical needs. In addition to respite and end of life care, the Children’s Home will provide: ongoing family support; pain and symptom management; transition to home from hospital following surgery or illness; spiritual and bereavement care.

Pediatric palliative and respite care, in this home-like setting will be offered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by professional staff who are dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of children, youth and their families living with progressive life-limiting illnesses. Staff will be an interdisciplinary team, incorporating a diverse group of healthcare professionals, support staff and volunteers, all specialized in pediatric care.

PAC’s Children’s Home will offer a place where life is celebrated and lived to the fullest and every moment becomes a precious memory for the family. This “home away from home” will provide security, comfort and a compassionate, holistic, family centered and culturally sensitive environment of care.

PAC will continue to work in collaboration with CCAC’s, Sick Kids Hospital and other health care professionals and community agencies to provide a continuum of comprehensive pediatric care, which will help to make the journey with serious illness more manageable and meaningful for families.

PAC has found an ideal site for the Children's Home at the Governor's House at 562 Gerrard Street East, near Broadview. We are working closely with the Ontario Heritage Trust and City of Toronto’s Heritage Preservation to preserve this historic building. To meet standards for Residential Hospice we also plan an addition to the rear of the site. The addition will feature a Green Roof, dining area, elevator and additional bedroom space. The green space surrounding the home has been granted to the City of Toronto as a park. Provided that the Children's Home obtains Committee of Adjustment approvals for the addition, construction could begin as early as the summer of 2010, with the home opening in summer, 2011.

Stay tuned for further details …